Researcher: Whale Activists Hurt Cause

September 26, 1986|By Mike Thomas of The Sentinel Staff

GAINESVILLE — A University of Florida researcher said Thursday that conservation groups are thwarting his efforts to save endangered whales.

Richard Lambertsen said his research, which involves studying tissue from whales killed by hunters in Iceland, is intended to prove that past quotas for whaling have been too high, leading to their depletion.

His critics, such as Greenpeace, say he is lending support to the continued hunting of whales.

The 33-year-old veterinarian said quotas have been based on the assumption there is almost no natural mortality of whales. He said he hopes to show that whales are much more vulnerable to natural problems, such as disease, than once thought.

While there is an international moratorium on commercial whaling, this won't last forever, Lambertsen said. Research is needed to provide evidence to extend the moratorium and put tighter restrictions on whaling, he said.

''In a very real way, our conservation effort is crippled by protest groups,'' Lambertsen said. ''I personally think this is a fraud perpetrated by Greenpeace to raise public funds.''

Lambertsen received a permit from the National Marine Fisheries Commission last week to import the tissue into the United States so he can study it in sophisticated university laboratories.

The permit is only good until the end of the year. Lambertsen said his research may end then because of pressure by environmental and animal rights groups on funding sources such as the United Nations Environmental Program.

Lambertsen has asked the UNEP for a $1.5 million grant to do similar research through 1990.

Greenpeace and other groups say Lambertsen's work gives credence to killing of whales for research, which is exempt from the commercial whaling moratorium. Iceland plans to kill 120 fin and sei whales this year for its research program and sell almost half the meat to Japan. Both species of whale are endangered.

Iceland also plans to kill a similar number of whales each year for the next three years.

Dean Wilkinson, a Greenpeace spokesman in Washington, said his group would be happy to stop using the whaling issue to raise funds if people stopped killing whales. For example, Wilkinson said Greenpeace no longer uses the harp seal issue to raise funds because harp seal hunting has stopped.

''What is ironic is that he Lambertsen makes us look like a money- grubbing operation when almost everyone who works here makes far less money than him,'' Wilkinson said.

Lambertsen said the conservation groups are going in the wrong direction. Until humans understand wildlife, which requires research, they can't conserve it, he said.

In 100 years, with whales and people competing for limited marine resources, it's inevitable that humans once again will kill whales, Lambertsen said.

Asked if humans could just decide not to kill whales, as they have done with other endangered species, Lambertsen replied, ''That's the day we decide not to go to war with each other.''